Canberra in the Wet 23-24 October, 2004
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Text and photographs © David Powell, except where indicated. | |
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Saturday Did a weekend trip down to Canberra to visit some friends - and naturally, do a bit of sightseeing on the way and down there. A quiet drive - about 300km or so each way and not much traffic. We did run into a swarm of bugs just north of Goulburn, which necessitated a stop at a service station to clean the windscreen. Took the opportunity to have some morning tea. Then back onto the road and onto Condor. Condor is a fairly new suburb on the southernmost edge of Canberra. Past Condor is farmland. Not all that long ago, that's what Condor was too, for that matter. Yet another mushroom suburb. We were visiting some friend's of Cynthia's. Took the morning to get down there and then after lunch & some socialising, we did a bit of tourist sightseeing .. more for my sake I daresay.
Headed south on the Tharwa Road (which actually goes to
Cooma and the Snowy Mountains). First stop was Lanyon Homestead, an old sheep
station. A nice looking place, with the buildings a pretty ochre-yellow colour.
Alas, while it is normally open for tours, the house itself was closed for a
wedding. Roamed around the estate a bit (it's still a functioning farm), the
outbuildings (including a small gaol), and gardens and down to the fence
overlooking the fields. The outbuildings, built of locally quarried stone,
include several storage sheds, the kitchen, a gaol, dairy and several
retainer's cottages, Wilson's Cottage and Dutton's Cottage. Many of the
outbuildings date to the homestead's earliest years and many of them are
covered with a thick growth of ivy. I was particularly taken by a bell turret
at the top of one of the kitchen walls. Looking up the bare plaster coated
stone wall, one could almost imagine looking at the wall and bell of some
simple adobe church in Mexico. The original homestead was built by James Lanyon in 1835
using convict labour and was Canberra's first stone cottage. Now a National
Trust property. Andrew Cunningham built the present day Victorian-style
homestead in 1859, again with convict labour. Even tho' Lanyon was only in
Australia for three years, the homestead still bears his name. James Wright
bought the property from Lanyon and in turn sold it to Cunningham in 1848, in
who'se family it remained until the 20th century. Also on the property is the Sir Sidney Nolan Gallery. There
was a lovely white carriage with two black horses there for the wedding.
Then on south along the Tharwa
Road with some pretty neat views along the sides of the roads with rolling
hills and farmland. Next stop was the Tharwa Bridge, built in 1885 over the
Murrumbidgee River. An old wooden trestle bridge, probably just as solidly
built and study as modern concrete bridges - it has lasted for over 120 years
after all.
Continued south to have a quick peek at another old
homestead, "Cuppacumbalong". Alas, we couldn't have a cuppa there -
there was a wedding reception going on there as well. Hmmm ... maybe there's
something in the water? Even tho' the name sounds rather contrived, it's
supposedly an aboriginal word meaning “Meeting of the Waters” - the property is
sited near where the Murrumbidgee and Gudgenby Rivers converge. Originally a
sheep & cattle station covering 18,000 acres and including the village of
Tharwa. The original homestead was built in 1848 by James Wright after he'd sold
nearby Lanyon Homestead. The original homestead was destroyed by a flood in
1890 and the present day building was built in 1923. Queen Elizabeth II stayed
at the homestead during her 1954 tour. Well ok, she had a cuppa there. Honest! The family cemetery is a short walk from
the homestead and incorporates an old aboriginal burial site as well as the
grave of one of Canberra's earliest bushrangers. Headed back via the upmarket end of Condor - way up in the
hills. I'd hate to park on the driveways there! Forget to put the handbrake on
and you'd find your car several kilometres downhill. Well maybe not - the roads
were a rabbit warren maze. Some of the houses were big enuf to be motels. A tasty stir-fry dinner and an early nite. Woke up in the wee hours of the night to the sounds of heavy rain, which continued non-stop until the next evening. Actually it followed us back to Sydney. Sunday
Drove a bit around the heart of Canberra. Had a quick look
at the new Parliament House and then drove along Melbourne Avenue, the heart of the embassy district - where
the highest concentration of embassies can be found. Very luxurious. Wasn't
there to look at the embassies - less than 50 metres down one of the side
streets was where Cynthia's parents lived back in the 1970's, before her dad
retired and moved to Sydney. Talk about rubbing shoulders with the rich and
famous. Or should that be rich and infamous? It was raining all the time, so
the sightseeing was strictly thru' the car window.
After a few creative detours (someone said they
used to live
in Canberra), which seem obligatory for almost every tourist visiting
Canberra, we eventually got to the top of Black Mountain and more to
the
point, the Telstra Tower that's sited there, built in the early 1970's.
At 195
metres high, it's not exactly making any records, but sitting on the
top of a
mountain, overlooking Canberra, you can see it clearly from almost
anywhere in
Canberra, making it Canberra's most conspicuous landmark. Oh, and the
view of
Canberra from the tower is simply spectacular. Well in theory it has a
great
view. The tower is high enuf to be well into the cloud layer and all
one could
see were clouds .. lots of clouds. The cloud was pretty thick and while
I was
changing lenses on my camera in the car park, even the tower
disappeared. I
know it was only 'bout 50m away, but not a trace of it could be seen,
the cloud
was that thick. Well I assume it was still there - for all I know
someone
could've gone and stolen it.
Back down to Canberra and braved the teeming rain to have
lunch at a neat Irish pub, King O'Malley's. In decor and atmosphere much like
Sydney's Green Fiddler, however O’Malley’s is comparatively new. Named after
King O'Malley, an Irish-American immigrant who arrived in Australia in 1889.
O'Malley, who made a career of politics, is known as the Father of Canberra,
having first fought for Canberra as the site of the nation's capital and then choosing
Walter Burley Griffin's design for the city. Some of his other achievements
include establishing the Commonwealth Bank and building the Transcontinental
Railway (the latter not in person, I assume). O'Malley's pub was founded after
he retired in 1927. It's rather ironically named after O'Malley since he was a
tea-totaller and he kept Canberra 'dry' for well over a decade. I had a Guinness
of course, not that I like beer, but when one is in Rome, one does as the
Roman's do and it was an Irish pub. Said our farewells and headed back home ..
in yet more rain. Lotsa rain. Lotsa heavy rain. Made the drive tricky at times,
but we did get back safely, even if it took a bit longer than usual for that
drive. |
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Some web sites of relevance (valid as of January 2005) Cuppacumbalong: http://www.cuppacumbalong.com.au Lanyon Homestead: http://www.museumsandgalleries.act.gov.au/lanyon/ Yesterday's Canberra: http://www.tomw.net.au/cnbst2.html Canberra Tourism: http://www.canberratourism.com.au/frame1.cfm?pageid=79 Heritage of the Tuggeranong Valley: http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~tccorg/guide/history.htm Historic Buildings and Places in Canberra: http://www.wilmap.com.au/magazine/acthistory.html Aussie Info.com - Canberra: http://www.aussie-info.com/places/act/canberra/tourist.php Australia Travel - Telstra Tower: http://www.australia.travelmall.com/travelmall/attraction/Canberra%20(ACT)/Telstra%20Tower King O'Malley's Pub: http://www.kingomalleys.com.au/ |